Universal Treasures

Every morning, I wake up greedy. I rise like a thief, stealing joy. I snatch laughter from the air in hungry handfuls. I stuff smiles into my pockets. I tuck love away in my sleeves.

I lift music from birds and breath from trees and sweet fragrances from flowers. I steal lines of poetry from conversations. I rob time of its heaviness.

I kidnap the child of my imagination and hold it for the ransom of innocent revelry. I demand my conditions of glee are met. I will accept nothing less than happiness.

My taking is maniacal. I am crazy about the world. I can never get enough of it.

Every morning, I fill the cup of my joy to the brim. Sometimes I get deliciously reckless and allow it to overflow. I drink bliss down to the last delightful drop. I carry its warmth inside of me all day. It runs through my veins. I am never cold.

Some days I get caught stealing moments of reflection. I’ll be staring off into the distance, following a thought back to its source, or further away from it. Someone will walk in my line of view. They won’t realize I’m looking out across the universe. They’ll smile at me and the stars will realign. I’ll see the planets inside of them move. And when I smile back, I’ll feel the universe unfolding inside of me too – powerful and everlasting.

We are aliens to each other, but we are all part of the same thing. We are composed of the same matter. We exist in the same pocket of the universe. We are here for the same reasons, whatever they may be. We can shine as bright as the cosmos. We can feel the depths of space.

Every morning, I open my eyes to a new world. The landscape may be the same, but I am always different. A little older, a little wiser, a little further from the beginning and closer to the end. I am not stuck in the universe. I am a piece of the universe. I am always moving and turning and changing. My horizons are forever expanding. I am never completely still.

And so I have to hold on to keep myself centered. I grasp tightly to love. I wrap my hands around smiles and laughter and joy. I fill the empty pockets of space with greedy delight. I take all that I can from each day.

And I keep it in the universe that exists inside of me. It shines from me like suns and moons. It warms me like bliss running through my veins.

Inside my body there are constellations that at times align perfectly with yours. Inside my world there are people and places and things that can never be stolen away. Inside my life there are moments more precious to me than the stars.

Inside my chest there is a heart, and inside that, there’s treasure.

Protection

In the seventh grade, a friend of mine made a joke about committing suicide. I knew it was a joke because she laughed. Everyone laughed. But I didn’t. I could only smile in that awkward way I do when I know something’s not quite right but can’t find the words to explain it. I carried her comment with me all day.

It made me feel strange in a way I would later recognize as a kind of wisdom. To know something wasn’t right meant that I had a sense of what was. But of course, at the time, I didn’t feel wise. I just felt twelve and scared and uncertain of almost everything.

When I got home, I decided to tell my mother. She sat and listened calmly. There was a meeting at school the next day. I remember my friend walking out of it and approaching me in the hallway. “It was a JOKE, Frankie!” She yelled, not necessarily out of anger, but nevertheless in a way that made me feel small. Everyone stared. I smiled my awkward smile and buried my face in my locker. I don’t think I ever apologized.

It is the kind of embarrassing childhood moment that stays with you forever, no matter how wise or mature you become. We are all survivors of our childhoods. There are bound to be scars. There will always be regrets. There will always be stories we wish we could change.

And I got lucky, because this one did.

My mom brought it up a few weeks ago. “I tell that story all the time,” she said. And she reminded me about the night I told her, how afterwards she had started to make up the lie we would tell others. “We could say you wrote about it in your journal and I had gone through your things and read it.” She wanted to save me from having to be “the bad guy.” She wanted to protect me.

But I just looked at her and said, in the most matter-of-fact kind of way, “But mom, why would I want her to think I wouldn’t tell someone if I thought she was in trouble?” And my mom looked back at me, at my twelve-year-old face, and saw that I had grown up.

Protection is a funny thing. We confuse it sometimes with fear. We are afraid the truth will hurt others. We are afraid the truth will hurt us. We are afraid because the truth is more powerful than we can imagine, because it has the ability to change everything. We are afraid of change and we are afraid to change. Uncertainty is scary, no matter how old we get.

But when my mom changed this story for me by filling in the missing truths, I understood something about that embarrassing moment, the one I’ve been replaying in my head over the years, wishing I could go back and do it differently. I understood that I wouldn’t have done it differently. I wanted to protect my friend. That’s why I told the truth.

And the truth is that sometimes we love people so much that we have to risk hurting them. And the truth is that sometimes we love people so much that we have to risk being hurt by them and for them and because we love them. The truth is that not everyone who plays the bad guy is a bad guy. Sometimes they’re just people trying to do what they feel is right. Even when it may be embarrassing. Even when they’re scared. Even when they know it could change everything.

People may laugh. People may stare. People may say things that make you feel small. But love is a truth that’s always worth the risk. It is something I want to protect. That’s why I share it.

Loss

Thousands of people in the world die every day, which is one good reason – but not the only one – to say “I love you.” It is painful to lose someone to death. It can be even more painful to lose them to life, to feel them slowly slipping away, to watch them fade into shadows.

One day you let go of my hand and got swept up in the crowd. I watched more and more people come between us. I reached out for you. I called out for you. But I couldn’t get through.

And then I lost you. You were lost. And I was lost. And we lost each other.

And I hated myself for not being able to find you. And I hated you for disappearing. And I hated that we could live in a world where it was so easy to lose someone. And I worried that I hadn’t said “I love you” enough.

I have been searching for you ever since, in the most painful and desperate of hopes. I have caught glimpses of you in strangers. I have seen so many faces that could be yours. Things could have been different. I should have held onto your hand tighter. I shouldn’t have let you let go.

Thousands of people in the world get lost every day, which is one good reason – but not the only one – to hold someone’s hand. I still have yours in mine. I cling to the memory of it as tightly as I should have held onto the real thing. It’s the only way I know how to tell you that I’m sorry.

And I am sorry. I’m sorry for you that you are lost. I’m sorry for me for losing you. I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to save you. I’m sorry that all my life I’ve stood and watched you drift further and further away, that I’ve let you disappear into the crowd, that I’ve allowed you to fade into shadows. I should have provided more light.

It hurts to wait. It hurts even more not to know what you’re waiting for, what you’re hoping for, if there will ever be an end to such undefined longing. It hurts most to wait when waiting is all you can do.

But I will wait for you. If I could tell you something, it would not be I’m sorry or even I love you, although both are true. It would be that I am still here, reaching out, calling for you. It would be that I haven’t stopped searching, or hoping, or feeling the weight of your hand in mine. I would tell you that there is a better life waiting for you, if only you would come back and find it.

I would tell you that thousands of people in the world die every day, which is one good reason – but not the only one – to keep living. I would beg you not to give up.

For You

For thousands of years, people fought for you. They stood up for you. They worked hard for a future they would never see. They helped build your present. They were kind for you and they were tough for you. They survived for you and they died for you. They had children for you. And then their children had children for you. And on and on and on, until there was a you. You – the living, breathing result of thousands of years of love.

You can’t imagine what it took to create you. It was so much more than a mother and father. It was more, even, than all of your ancestors combined. It was millions of moments and choices and circumstances. You exist because of all that came before you.

There is a light inside of you that is ancient and nameless. It is the shining story of the world. It is labor and suffering and intimacy and joy. It is sacrifice and loss and longing. It is the purest form of love – the one that fills your heart and breaks your heart and transforms your heart into something more than just a muscle. It is reason enough to feel gratitude.

So be grateful. Be grateful for your heart and its insatiable hunger. Be grateful for your mind and its boundless potential. Be grateful for your body and the way that it moves, and grows, and changes. Be grateful for your life because it waited for you for so long.

And now that you are here, there is so much work to be done. There is so much to build, and to stand up and fight for. There is so much to remember and forget. There are thousands of years of flowers to be planted, to bloom again and again in future fields that you will never see.

You are not the end and you are not the beginning. You are part of the middle where all of us meet, and embrace, and stop missing each other. You are an integral piece, because every future you depends upon the present, and the present you was made possible by the past.

And what does any of this mean except that you matter. You exist to be no more and no less than alive. You are here as the result of thousands of years of love. Your purpose is to keep building – brick upon benevolent brick – a story that lasts for thousands of years more.

People fought for your right to do this. Be grateful you have such a chance. Then go out into the world and write yourself into it. Tattoo your name on the stars. Be kind and tough and joyful. Don’t waste your light.

Callings

I know that it’s been a few days. I know, because when I was young someone taught me how to read a calendar, how to count suns and moons, how to divide the grand scope of time into more manageable sizes. I know how to fill an hour and I know how to waste a moment. I know the nagging feeling that there is more I could have done.

But mostly I know that I haven’t been writing because I can feel it in my bones. Or perhaps my heart, or gut, or – if you’re feeling brave – what one might call the soul. I know it’s what woke me up at 2am this morning, tired of waiting for me to recognize gentle reminders, demanding my attention. “Open the page and write,” it cried.

I have been sad enough, and lucky enough, to hear this voice before. I have been wise enough, on occasion, to listen.

I remember a time, years ago – which I know from marking off the days – when I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of something calling. No one else could hear it. Or if they could, it didn’t stir loudly enough inside of them to force them from their beds and join me outside, where I sat and stared at the moon. If it wasn’t full, it was close to it, which is another feeling I have known.

I was in the Himalayas at the time. I had never been, and have never been since, closer to the sky. Or myself. Or a particular kind of unlonely solitude. Or – if you’re feeling brave – inner peace.

It was the middle of the night, or the beginning of the morning, depending on where you were taught to draw those lines. The air was thick, heavy with scent and sentiment. “Open your lungs and breathe” a voice cried. I listened. I divided the world down into a more manageable size.

Inhale the life that is just now beginning. Exhale the disappointments of the life now gone. Each breath its own preface and epilogue. Each cycle its own birth and death. Each moment its own moon, coming and going, rising and falling, ebbing and flowing. The air lay bittersweet upon my tongue.

And when I had emptied all of my thoughts onto the vast page of the sky, and made room for something new, I went back inside and put on my shoes. “Now, open the door and go.”

So I did. I walked and then ran, down the winding roads of the mountains, into the early morning light. People emerged from their houses. They smiled and waved hello. I could feel their sweetness in my bones. There was no better way to fill those hours. There was nothing more we could have done.

All my life I have been lucky enough to have a voice. It speaks endlessly of gratitude and love. It arrives in every moment in the grand scope of time, demanding my attention. It wakes me when I haven’t even noticed I’m asleep.

“Open your eyes and see,” it cries. “Open your heart and live.” I know that you can hear it too. And – if you’re feeling brave – you can listen.

Never, Never

I came home from rehearsal with Tinker Bell still in my hair. Wire garlands of tinsel were wrapped around my head. It took forever to put them in. I was too exhausted to take them out.

I crashed down into my bed, too worn out to even shut the bedroom door behind me. My mother walked by.

“You can’t sleep like that, darling,” she told me.

“I don’t care” I said, too tired to care.

And without another word, my mother walked across the room and sat on the bed beside me. Then carefully, gently, she began to untangle the tinsel from my hair. She pulled out shining piece after shining piece, and when they were all gone, she stayed and stroked my back.

I was a teenager, and I remember thinking, ‘I am too old for such tenderness.’ And I remember thinking, ‘I hope I am never too old for such tenderness.’ And I remember thinking, ‘there are some things we never stop needing.’

One day you left your childhood behind. You stopped believing in fairies. And whether you welcomed the change, or fought against it, or simply shrugged your shoulders in resignation and said “okay,” adulthood arrived. You forgot how to get back. You ran out of pixie dust. However it happened, it happened.

But not fully.

Because you never, never stop needing what you needed as a child, what you cried out for in the middle of the night as though – because – your whole life depended on it. You never, never stop craving comfort. You never, never stop wanting to be held. You never, never stop chasing the shadows of your youth across bedroom walls.

There is a softness that never, never leaves you, no matter how hard life becomes. You are not the shell that cracks. You are the delicate baby bird. You crow. You spend your whole life flying toward adventure. The song of your joy is laughter. The sound of your laughter skips about. You create magic, but also, you are magic, and not even the ticking crocodile can take that away. Not even hooks and swords.

Never.

Never.

My mother sat on the bed beside me as I hovered in the place between awake and dreaming. That was ten years ago now. But day after shining day, I have pulled from that night the memory of tenderness. I have carried it with me through the stars and straight on ‘til morning. It is a happy thought.

In The End

On the last day of earth, people rose early. There was so much work to be done. Phone calls were made. Important sentiments were expressed. A new record was set for daily kisses.

No one went into the office. All businesses were closed. All eyes and ears and arms stayed open.

Some remained inside, cleaning their homes, returning everything back to its proper place.

Some poured themselves into the streets, shouting and laughing and roaring with life.

Some stayed quiet, pensive, breathing in the end of sweetness.

Some held strangers.

Some held animals.

Some held objects.

Some held the hands of their loved ones, all day, waiting.

People relaxed into their grief and made room for acceptance. The birds sang wildly of every beautiful thing. The dogs howled madly at invisible moons. The grass continued to grow. It was the opposite of disappearing.

“Now” whispered the wind.

The earth trembled in anticipation. The trees waved goodbye. The oceans overflowed with sad and happy tears.

The waves crashed, echoing the sound of the world’s first expression.The earth circled back towards nothingness, like all living things.

People watched from windows, trapped inside the blaze of their own bodies. There were so few ways to speak. There was so much that needed to be said. The hours dwindled. The sun moved across the sky.

In the last moments of the last hour of the last day of earth, everyone gathered together to stand separately in a crowd. Every phone was silent. All electronics were turned off.

People spoke, but didn’t really speak.

People laughed, but didn’t really laugh.

People cried, but didn’t really cry.

People prayed, but didn’t really pray.

People clung to one another. They held millions of years in their arms. They remembered the world in reverse – day before day, moon before moon, all the way back to the beginning.

Vanishing Act

At 2am, unable to sleep, I wrote in my head. It was a beautiful piece. It was smart and complex and maybe even a little witty. I was pleased with it and pleased with myself, which doesn’t happen often. I was too tired to rise and walk to my desk, so I focused all of my energy on remembering. I squeezed my eyes tight. Remember. Remember. Remember. By morning, it was gone.

Some days I can feel myself disappearing. It starts with something small; a fingernail perhaps, or a pinky toe. Then goes an eye, a hand, my entire right leg. By mid-afternoon, I have only one shoulder, a tongue-less mouth, and a single ear. By nightfall, I am gone.

I am aware of this vanishing act. It is something other than forgetting. It is the empty space the forgetting leaves behind. All day long I feel the weight of my phantom limbs. Nothing feels heavier than absence.

There are moments I have tried to cling to. I have stood in the very center of them and squeezed my eyes tight. Remember. Remember. Remember. A few times this has worked. But mostly I have remembered the act of trying to form a memory and forgotten the memory itself. There is always the sense of something beautiful just slightly out of reach.

I have forgotten to remember more than I’ve needed to remember to forget. I suppose this is something to be grateful for. Holding on is one thing. It is another to let go. To do neither is something else entirely. To do both is a form of grief.

When I was a child, invisibility was my superpower of choice. I imagined it. I wished for it. But now there is nothing about it that seems powerful. There is nothing super about being unseen. There is nothing heroic about fading.

When I was a child, I learned to be quieter. I wish I could remember to forget this. I wish I could remember how to scream. I wish I hadn’t stopped demanding of the world “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!”

Because one day the world stopped looking. They forgot to remember I was there. And because there was no one to see me, I disappeared.

Every second of every day of every year of my life, I have gotten a little further away from one thing and a little closer to something else. There are many names for these points; past, future, happiness, sadness, closeness, loneliness, here, gone. They are not singular or linear. They pull from every direction. They stretch so thin that they almost disappear.

But when they do appear, clearly and fully, screaming “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” I remember to allow their weight to fill in the empty spaces. I try to hold on and I try to let go. I squeeze my eyes tight. Remember. Remember. Remember.

I forget how to be gone.

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

Thank you for the band-aids. Thank you for the breakfasts and lunches and dinners. Thank you for all of the years of tucking me in, and turning out the light. Thank you for always making sure I got to school on time, and forgiving me for making you late. Thank you for remembering the things I would have otherwise forgotten.

Thank you for the handmade, witty Halloween costumes. Thank you for the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, and thank you for still refusing to admit they weren’t real. Thank you for the gifts. Thank you for always reading me stories, and telling me stories, and helping me believe in magic.

Thank you for allowing me to tell stories – mine, yours, ours. Thank you for listening. Thank you for understanding that they are about more than just us. Thank you for the pens, and books, and journals. Thank you for supporting and encouraging me to write. Thank you for the volumes of poetry. Thank you for the inspiration.

Thank you for being patient with me when I was learning how to walk, how to ride a bike, and how to drive. Thank you for instilling in me the desire to always be exploring. Thank you for taking me on adventures around the world. Thank you for allowing me to go on some of my own.

Thank you for trusting me, even when you couldn’t fully understand my choices. Thank you for being wise enough to be uncertain. Thank you for telling me when I made you mad. Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for confiding in me and letting me confide in you. Thank you for being the first person I call when things go right or wrong.

Thank you for being selfless enough to teach me to be independent. Thank you for still being there whenever I need you. Thank you for sometimes needing me. Thank you for never giving up on me, even at my worst.

Thank you for potty-training. Thank you for years of cleaning up snot and throw-up and blood. Thank you for no less than 6 million loads of laundry. Thank you for soothing each cry.

Thank you for hugs, and kisses, and cuddles. Thank you for making sure I always felt loved and wanted. Thank you for allowing me to love and to want. Thank you for my good manners. Thank you for teaching me to treat others with respect and kindness. Thank you for kindness – for yours and mine.

Thank you for trying not to embarrass me too much, but sometimes still embarrassing me. Thank you for teaching me to be humble. Thank you for turning moments of humiliation into opportunities for humor and courage. Thank you for showing me the importance of perspective.

Thank you for teaching me how to embrace all of the layers, even the ugly ones. Thank you for cherishing our imperfections. Thank you for helping me recognize beauty. Thank you for filling my life with it.

Thank you for being strong, but also vulnerable. Thank you for being serious, but also silly. Thank you for being tough, but also tender. Thank you for being my mother, but also my best friend.

Thank you for hours of conversation and laughter. Thank you for decades of love.

Thank you for being a superhero, and thank you for making mistakes. Thank you for bringing me into the world and teaching me how to love it.

You’ve given me so much to write about.

Your adoring daughter,
Frankie

More Illumination

Yet again, my extremely talented friend, Simon Rogers, borrowed a few of my words and turned them into something beautiful and magical and amazing. He is a true artist, and a luminous being, and someone who has filled my life with endless light.

Please take a few moments to watch his phenomenal work. Then, go watch more. I promise it will bring you joy.

You can see the original post “Illumination” here.

Happy Saturday! ♥